European Journal of Marketing

Communication-in-use: customer-integrated marketing communication

Åke Finne, Christian Grönroos,
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EJM-08-2015-0553
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Communication-in-use: Marketing
communication
customer-integrated
marketing communication
Åke Finne and Christian Grönroos 445
Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS),
Department of Marketing, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland Received 18 August 2015
Revised 2 December 2015
Accepted 31 December 2015

Abstract
Purpose – This conceptual paper aims at developing a customer-centric marketing communications
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approach that takes the starting point in the customer ecosystem.

Design/methodology/approach – After a critical analysis of existing marketing communications and
integrated marketing communication (IMC) approaches, a customer-driven view of marketing
communications is developed using recent developments in relationship communication, customer-dominant
logic and the notion of customer value formation as value-in-use.
Findings – A customer-integrated marketing communication (CIMC) approach centred on a
communication-in-use concept is conceptually developed and introduced. The analysis results in a CIMC
model, where a customer in his or her individual ecosystem, based on integration of a set of messages from
different sources, makes sense of the many messages he or she is exposed to.
Research limitations/implications – The paper presents a customer-driven perspective on marketing
communication and IMC. The analysis is conceptual and should trigger future empirical grounding. It
indicates the need for a change in mindset in research.
Practical implications – CIMC requires a turnaround in the mindset that steers how companies and their
marketers communicate with customers. The CIMC model provides guidelines for planning marketing
communication.
Originality/value – The customer-driven communication-in-use concept and the CIMC model challenge
traditional inside-out approaches to planning and implementing marketing communication.
Keywords Customer-dominant logic, Value-in-use, CIMC, Communication-in-use,
Customer-integrated marketing communication, Relationship communication
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. Introduction
The introduction of integrated marketing communication (IMC) with its concept of helping
senders to speak with one voice was a step forward in the development of marketing
communication. However, what remained unclear was whether the receiver, such as a
current or potential customer, recognized what was communicated as one voice, or
recognized it as different voices, or recognized it at all. For this reason, in an earlier article
(Finne and Grönroos, 2009), we suggested a relationship communication model, where the
focus on how the voice of a sender is perceived is shifted from the sender to the receiver. In the
present article, we take this a step further by introducing the communication-in-use concept,
which is based on the value that emerges for a customer of messages sent by a
communicator. We define communication-in-use as:
European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 51 No. 3, 2017
pp. 445-463
© Emerald Publishing Limited
The authors would like to thank their colleague, Professor Tore Strandvik at the Hanken School of 0309-0566
Economics, Finland, for his most useful comments and suggestions. DOI 10.1108/EJM-08-2015-0553
 EJM […] the customer’s integration and sense making of all messages from any source, company-driven
or stemming from other sources, the customer perceives as communication, forming value-in-use for
51,3 him/her for a specific purpose.
Based on this, IMC is developed into outside-in-oriented customer-integrated marketing
communication (CIMC).
Indeed, there has been a call for a more customer-oriented view of IMC (Schultz and
446 Barnes, 1999; Schultz, 2003, 2006; Kitchen et al., 2004a, 2004b; Shimp, 2007; Finne and
Grönroos, 2009). Schultz (1996) was among the first to argue in favour of this. Subsequent
attempts to implement such a view included Finne and Grönroos’ (2009) relationship
communication model. This model addresses the changing view of customer activity in the
contemporary world, which is considered one reason for this call for a change in emphasis
(Finne and Strandvik, 2012). Lately, changes in the range of channels, use of media and
technical development have been rapid, with customers using several devices online
regularly. The customer has access to multiple forms of media and can interact with several
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of these simultaneously, choosing or rejecting sources, receiving and sending messages and
being simultaneously active in some media and passive in others. In addition, the customer
is influenced by several forms of social media and, as demonstrated by relationship
communication, by a host of other sources (Duncan and Moriarty, 1997) and factors, such as
situational ones that are internal and external to the customer (Mick and Buhl, 1992) and
temporal ones that relate to past, ongoing and/or envisioned future relationships
(Edvardsson and Strandvik, 2000). This change in customer practices has become more
pronounced in recent years. Parallel to this change in customers’ communication activity and
behaviour, companies have access to a growing amount of data (big data) through technical
devices and online gadgets or collected through other means, which can be used for more
customer-focused planning of marketing communication. In combination with another trend
in marketing, neuromarketing (Braeutigam, 2005; Lee et al., 2007; Hammou et al., 2013), this
change may challenge future marketing research and practice. However, in spite of these
developments of customer activity, the media structure and marketers’ access to more
customer-specific data, the development of theoretical concepts and models of marketing
communication have not kept pace.
On the other hand, new thoughts regarding the customer’s role in marketing and
marketing communication today can be found in the literature on customer-dominant logic
(CDL) (Heinonen et al., 2010; Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015; Rindell et al., 2010). Because this
logic is based on a customer focus grounded in the customer’s own ecosystem, customer
value is a central concept in CDL. Following Grönroos (2008, p. 303), we define customer
value in the following manner:
Value for customers means that after they have been assisted by a self-service process (cooking a
meal or withdrawing cash from an ATM [and also being exposed to an ad; authors’ comment]) or a
full-service process (eating out at a restaurant or withdrawing cash over the counter in a bank [and
also being involved in sales negotiations; authors’ comment]), they are or feel better off than before.
Lately, customer value has extensively been emphasized by several researchers as
value-in-use. This value concept (Edvardsson et al., 2011; Grönroos, 2006, 2011; Vargo and
Lusch, 2008) differs from the traditional transactional value-in-exchange concept, as it
focuses not on money paid for a product or service but also on perceived customer value
emerging from the use of a product or a service. In this discussion, customer activity is well
addressed, but this stream of literature does not discuss marketing communication in any
greater depth. Thus, in this paper, we argue that the focus on the customer ecosystem of CDL
and the notion of value-in-use will contribute to a more customer-centric and outside-in view
 of marketing communication. A similar attempt to combine value-in-use with an existing Marketing
marketing concept can be found in branding literature, where Rindell (Rindell, 2013; Rindell communication
and Iglesias, 2014) discusses image-in-use as a branding concept with a strong customer
focus. For the development of a customer-centric approach to marketing communication, we
consider these insights useful.
One problem has been that definitions of marketing communications are rather limited in
scope – e.g. defining who is doing what and through which channels, and listing instruments
of communication. The focus has been merely on getting messages out and, when doing so, 447
making effective decisions. Such definitions lead to a focus on marketing communications
management from a company perspective rather than focusing on the customer’s value
process triggered by communication, whoever the sender might be. For example, De
Pelsmacker et al. (2013, pp. 3-4) define marketing communications in the following manner:
All the instruments [e.g. advertising SP, sponsorship PR, direct marketing, e-communications] by
means of which the company communicates with its target groups and stakeholders to provide its
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products or the company as a whole.

This definition represents a traditional inside-out company-oriented view (i.e. what the
company does to influence a customer). Even though researchers or practicing organizations
sometimes may take the outside-in view into account as well, at the end of the day, it
probably remains a marginal attempt.
It is understandable that IMC at the time was developed in this way. IMC was a
development of earlier marketing communications approaches from a managerial
perspective based on the fact that customers were increasingly exposed to multichannel
messages. However, the managerial approach and the problem at the time to gather specific
data about customers disguised the outside-in idea of IMC. Changing realities have now
turned these definitions into relics from times when customer-specific data were difficult to
gather and customer-focused communications solutions were equally difficult to implement.
Our approach is also managerial and intended for management use, and not primarily a
consumer behaviour view. However, we aim to develop it such that the outside-in aspect is
not distorted. It differs from earlier IMC in that we believe that only the customer can define
the instruments that influence him or her in the communication process – i.e. define the real
instruments in use in his or her case. Thus, we consider marketing communications from the
customer’s perspective in terms of the following aspects:
Marketing communication is a process where a customer perceives an offering, product, service,
company or person. It can be deliberated or embedded in context, visible or merely in the head of the
customer. It can include experience, processes, activities triggering value-in-use for the customer,
and can consist of several simultaneous senders. On the other hand, a sender has not to be involved
at all, and parts of the perception may be sourced in the past, present or future, and the process is
constructed on the customer’s logic.
Therefore, we propose a perspective that deepens the understanding of the customer process
and the customer’s logic, which is intended to support a company’s marketing
communication management (Finne and Strandvik, 2012).
The purpose of the article is to develop a customer-centric marketing communications
approach, based on customers’ real use of communication messages in their own ecosystem
for various information-gathering and decision-making reasons (communication-in-use). To
this end, it imports insights into marketing communication from CDL, particularly from its
view of the customer ecosystem, and the contemporary notion of value-in-use, to develop a
customer-driven view of communication. Rather than undertake an in-depth elaboration of
marketing communication or IMC literature, this paper focuses on the customer and
 EJM value-in-use. The article will introduce a conceptual construct (communication-in-use) and
51,3 the CIMC model inspired by integrated communication from a CDL perspective.
The remainder of this article is structured in the following manner. A short overview of
marketing communication is followed by insights from the above-mentioned discussion on
value and value-in-use and CDL, concluding with a conceptual discussion of
communication-in-use and the development of the CIMC model.
448
2. Structuring previous marketing communication research
The use of sources in the communication process can be mapped by use of a two-dimensional
figure (Figure 1). The traditional perspective on communication normally focuses on one
message at a time, with a clearly defined sender (company) sending the message and a
receiver (customer) receiving it (for such a communication model, see Schramm, 1971); in
these terms, the message does something for the customer. Most textbooks on marketing
communications (Duncan, 2005; Pickton and Broderick, 2005; Shimp, 2007; Fill, 2013; De
Pelsmacker et al., 2013) still build on that concept, dealing with marketing mix and media
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strategies in which roles and instruments are clearly defined. In this view of the
communication process, the company is the subject (active sender) and the customer is an
object (passive receiver) (Finne and Grönroos, 2009). Noise, miscommunication (Mortensen,
1997) or distortion (Russo et al., 1996, 1998) can occur and interfere in the process, but the
communication process is still company-driven, from sender to receiver. Figure 1 (lower left)
describes this as a company-driven process built on a single source. The process is linear,
beginning with one message at a time that is to be transported to a potential customer. One
typical example of this situation would be the planning and execution of a marketing
communication campaign.
Moving from single-source communication to communication using several sources
(Figure 1; upper left) leads to what can be labelled traditional IMC, which has its roots in
internal planning methodology. In IMC, the central idea is that communication does not
occur in a vacuum but in a broader context, including both traditional media and other means
of communication, as well as product and service encounters, some of which may be more
difficult to control from a company perspective (Duncan and Moriarty, 1997; Lindberg-Repo
and Grönroos, 1999).

Company-driven Customer-driven
process process

Several sources Several sources

Integrated Meaning-based models:

Markeng Customer-defined
Communicaon: sources
consistency/ (e.g. relaonship
1 + 1 = 3 (effect) communicaon model)

Tradional C2C
markeng communicaon:
communicaon: Word-of-mouth,
Figure 1. Sender-receiver online acvies
models
Categorizing
marketing
Single source Single source
communication based
on sources and process Company-driven Customer-driven
process process
 In the traditional IMC approach, the goal is synergy (1 ⫹ 1 ⫽ 3), as the company attempts to Marketing
integrate all outgoing messages into one voice. However, this still represents a rather communication
instrument-driven view where the company creates the instruments. Typically, the IMC
literature is outcome-focused, emphasizing attentiveness, consistency and effectiveness.
Most of this stream of literature still relates to a company (sender) inside-out perspective, in
which the company drives integration and a consistent message is conveyed to the consumer
(Schultz, 1996). This can be characterized as company-integrated marketing communication.
Based on Pitt et al. (2006), the sources of messages included here were labelled closed sources
449
by Rindell and Strandvik (2010). Despite the call for customer-oriented views, there have
been few studies on sources that are not necessarily determined by the sender, or open
sources. Pitt et al. (2006) argue that the closed-source view represents the conventional
organizational standpoint, where the power and control of the corporate brand in all its
aspects are in the hands of the organization. Open-source brands represent the counterpoint,
where the consumer’s role as an active creator of the constructed corporate brand image from
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multiple sources is recognized. Accordingly, the organization loses control and the consumer
becomes empowered (Pitt et al., 2006; Rindell and Strandvik, 2010).
The lower-right quadrant in Figure 1 refers to C2C communication. Customers receive a
lot of input in their daily lives from sources other than conventional marketing
communications (Rindell and Strandvik, 2010), and the importance of word-of-mouth is well
represented in the marketing literature (Arndt, 1967; Richins, 1983; Trusov et al., 2009). In
this context, many companies monitor social media on a daily basis, and some offer an arena
for their customers to meet online and share and discuss ideas. It is also possible that the
company does not participate in this communication process, as it may be outside the
company’s line of visibility (Heinonen et al., 2013), beyond planned messages. For example,
a customer who needs a camera might ask around or just happen to hear about an interesting
offer and go to a store to buy it. Here, online activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or
similar media offer a good platform for communication. It may also be that the perception of
a particular camera brand is built on earlier experience (Finne and Grönroos, 2009; Rindell
and Iglesias, 2014), perhaps from a borrowed item that felt good in use. In such cases, the
communication process does not include a company source.
Over the years, the scope of IMC has broadened to take account of what is to be integrated
and who is doing the integration (Kitchen et al., 2008; Kitchen and Schultz, 2009). The
traditional school of communication has long been criticized for its passive view of the
customer (Buttle, 1995; Schultz, 2006). Although researchers now pay greater attention to
customer integration, the set of what to integrate is still very company-oriented, building on
traditional lists of communication instruments (De Pelsmacker et al., 2013). Today, a
company is required to listen to customers, find touchpoints where they actually meet their
customers and understand them, thereby recognizing customer contexts and transforming
messages to address customer meaning and value. Today, a customer can sit passively
watching TV on a commercial channel while at the same time actively searching Google or
Wikipedia and sending messages via Facebook and chat rooms. Meaning-based models of
communication (McCracken, 1986, 1987; Mick and Buhl, 1992) are one way to place an active
customer at the centre of the process. On this basis, Finne and Grönroos (2009) developed the
relationship communication model (Figure 2).
This model integrates factors from the customer’s ecosystem into a customer-driven
communication process and includes both temporal and situational dimensions (Finne and
Grönroos, 2009). The temporal dimension encompasses a continuum from past to envisioned
future experiences; the situational dimension includes a wide range of elements, from individual
motivations and abilities (internal factors) to trends and family and competitor activities (external
 EJM

Situational context
51,3
External
factors

450
Historical Meaning Future
factors creation factors

Internal
factors
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Figure 2. Time frame

The relationship
communication model Source: Finne and Grönroos (2009)

factors). Meaning-based models are described as a customer-driven process based on several

sources (Figure 1, upper right). Based on Pitt et al. (2006), Rindell and Strandvik (2010) described
these as open sources as opposed to company-driven closed sources (i.e. list of traditional
instruments). However, it can be challenging for a company to clarify what constitutes messages
and sources – i.e. to identify touchpoints (called messages in the traditional school of
communication) – as some of these may be hidden (Finne and Strandvik, 2012; Heinonen et al.,
2013). An example of a hidden message can be a brand used in criminal contexts by gang
members, thus influencing other customers’ image of the brand (Anker et al., 2015). In a
customer-driven process, the customer subjectively and independently decides what is to be
defined as a message, what a message contains and which sources are in use. In such a
process, some, sometimes most or all of the touchpoints may be, and most probably are, out
of the company’s reach (Finne and Strandvik, 2012). This customer-driven process can be
described as CIMC.

3. Value of communication
In the context of the emerging service perspective on marketing (Grönroos, 2006, 2011; Vargo
and Lusch, 2008), the notion of value-in-use has been discussed extensively in service
marketing literature. According to this perspective, products, services and information are
considered distributors of service (Edvardsson et al. 2011) that render value-in-use
(Gummesson, 1995; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Following this logic, from the customers’ point
of view, it appears natural to treat marketing communication like a service. In
communication terms, all message sources – either from traditional communication
instruments or beyond the range of these instruments, such as product messages, service
messages and unplanned messages (Duncan and Moriarty, 1997; Lindberg-Repo and
Grönroos, 1999; Finne and Strandvik, 2012) – serve customers’ needs for knowledge and
understanding relating to a product, service or any phenomenon that renders value-in-use for
their needs (e.g. in making purchasing decisions or consumption situations). Further,
marketing communication, as products and services, is or should be of value to customers
and facilitate their value formation. A message which is not considered useful by a customer
is of no or limited value. On the other hand, a message that a customer can act upon (e.g. find
 a solution, make a purchasing decision) has value (-in-use) for that customer. By switching Marketing
the focus from sources and messages to value and value-in-use in consumer processes, the communication
mental model and mindset of communication is expanded. Value-in-use is about customers’
experience of value, not the marketer’s intended value of a message. Therefore, it is beyond
what can be created by the marketer (Heinonen et al., 2013). As compared to the traditional,
company-oriented view, this represents a broader and rather different view of
communication instruments and resources. A communication message carries only potential
value, which in the best case transforms to realized value (as value-in-use) in the mind of a 451
customer.
Consequently, value is neither exchanged nor delivered but emerges as value-in-use in a value
creation or formation process (Grönroos, 2006, Gummesson, 1995) that extends beyond the
company’s line of visibility (Finne and Strandvik, 2012; Heinonen et al., 2013). This process need
not be deliberate or active but can emerge as embedded in customers’ mental processes.
According to Zaltman (2000, 2003), the greater part of the communication process occurs in the
customer’s head. It follows that the starting point for understanding that process should be the
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customer’s reality, network and ecosystem (Heinonen et al., 2010, 2013). In addition to marketers,
other actors and activities are included in the customer’s value-creation process (Heinonen et al.,
2010; Rindell and Strandvik, 2010), where value is formed “in the experiential context of living,
often outside the direct interaction or control zone of the provider” (Heinonen et al., 2013, p. 109).
According to Rindell, value-in-use is the customer’s present construction of value, based on a
temporal dimension (Rindell, 2013; Rindell and Iglesias, 2014); this is termed the customer’s image
heritage, including all contexts and sources relevant to the customer. The scope of value-in-use is
extended to a longitudinal experience perspective of the customer’s dynamic and multifaceted
reality (Heinonen et al., 2013, p. 110). Grönroos and Gummerus (2014) emphasize that value-in-use
evolves over time. Heinonen et al. (2013, p. 112) give the following example:
The customer experience and the interpretations made before, during and after it are coloured by
affective, social, economical, cognitive, physical, psychological and biological dimensions, forming
the “potential value landscape”. For example, on vacation with family, customers live their life and
vacation also though the eyes of their children and other family members interpreting their value
experiences. The reality of family members is part of their own reality and the value formation is
embedded in the multi-subjective experience comprising the multiple internal and external contexts
of the customer and her family members. The individual is not at focus but the whole customer
ecosystem is relevant, referring to a network of actors, activities and practices that shape and are
shaped by experiences.
Connecting value and communication is not new, but it remains rather rare. Ducoffe (1995)
has argued that certain factors might generate value in advertising, and Heinonen and
Strandvik (2005) have drawn similar conclusions regarding communication as an element in
service value. What is new here is the elaboration of a process view beyond one that is
focused merely on outcome to include both the outcome and the process view, in the manner
explained by Heinonen et al. (2013) above (Rindell, 2013). Instead of defining roles and
communication instruments from a company perspective, the view put forward here
emphasizes that the customer defines the instruments of communication used. The essential
aspect here is not just to include more things to integrate to arrive at a more complete list, but
to present a new way of understanding marketing communication that is based on
customer-driven activity.
The company has never had the power to limit the world of the customer (Schultz, 2006);
the only limitations that were created were those imposed by narrow theoretical models.
Communication instruments and processes must be useful to customers to create
value-in-use. At best, they facilitate the customer through valuable and useful processes and
 EJM outcomes (Table I). This is a long way from traditional approaches that involve observation
51,3 rates, or from discussions of messages that fulfil requirements for entertainment,
information or helpfulness in content marketing. What is essential is that the customer not
only integrate messages but also form value (value-in-use) based on multiple communication
sources (Heinonen et al., 2013). For this reason, customer logic becomes a necessary part of
the development of a customer-centric communication model. In CDL, customer logic is
452 defined as “[…] customers’ idiosyncratic reasoning and their sense-making about
appropriate ways for achieving their goals and conducting their tasks” (Heinonen and
Strandvik, 2015, p. 478). This logic steers customers’ behaviour and is both cognitive and
affective as well as – to a certain extent – explicit. Therefore, it influences how they choose
among what they are offered, such as the many communication messages that they are
exposed to (Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015).

4. Customer-dominant logic
As we have pointed out in previous sections, the concept of CDL offers a new perspective on
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marketing communication. CDL differs from other perspectives like service-dominant logic
(Vargo and Lusch, 2008) in that it explicitly takes the customer and his or her ecosystem as
the starting point. CDL is a marketing and business perspective with a management
approach that is dominated by customer-related aspects rather than products, services,
systems, costs or growth (Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015). Rather than focusing on what
companies are doing to create something that will be favoured by customers, CDL suggests
that the focus should be on what customers are doing with that something to accomplish
their own goals, and what management conclusions can be drawn from this (Heinonen et al.,
2010). This perspective particularly addresses the customer activity referred to at the
beginning of this article.
The issue of who is the subject (trad. sender) and who is the object (trad. receiver) can be
found in discussions of value-in-use as well. Grönroos and Ravald (2011) adopted the view
that value-in-use is not only assessed by customers but is also created by them. According to
Grönroos (Grönroos, 2011; Grönroos and Ravald, 2011; Grönroos and Voima, 2013),
advocating for a service logic (SL) as a management-oriented alternative to SDL (Grönroos
and Gummerus, 2014), the roles of firms and customers in value creation and co-creation need
to be defined. According to SL, customers are value creators and firms are value facilitators
that provide customers with resources that enable value creation: “Fundamentally, the
customer always is a value creator” (Grönroos, 2011, p. 293). If marketing communication
provides messages that do not enable a customer’s value creation well, his or her ability to
use them for decision-making is not facilitated well either. In such a case, although a
customer may have been exposed to communication, no, or low, value-in-use is created out of
the messages. If direct interactions between the two parties occur, such as in dyadic dialogue,
a platform for co-creation is established (Grönroos and Gummerus, 2014). In this manner,

Product-based Service-based

A well-designed product (e.g. an Apple laptop)
that is easy to use, reliable and good-looking,
gives a lot of value-in-use
Can be categorized as embedded messages in
Table I. the usage process of a company that cares
Examples of messages about its customers’ everyday life
based on value-in-use A strong positive message
A critical negative service incident (e.g. at a
restaurant), where the staff does not react or
does it very slowly
Can be categorized as an embedded message
regarding a restaurant that does not care
about customers (Calonius, 1989)
A strong negative message
 according to Grönroos (2006, 2011), customers are ascribed an active role in the process as Marketing
drivers of value creation, and the company can attempt to engage with their value creation as communication
co-creators. According to Heinonen et al. (2013), value-in-use is actually not created, it
emerges for the customer or is formed for him or her. This represents a base for a
customer-oriented view, instead of a company-dominant approach providing customers with
messages through clearly defined channels. This helps professionals and researchers to
focus on what customers are doing in the communication process as a starting point for
marketing communication decisions, instead of a dominating focus revolving around what a 453
company can do.
Finne and Strandvik (2012) expanded the discussion on who is active and who is passive
in the communication process. Based on customer logic, some messages will be selected and
some not. They included both deliberate and embedded messages in the list of
communication instruments. According to Finne and Grönroos (2009), it is the customer who
determines what is in fact communicated: perhaps messages from the company, or from
competitors, or memories of earlier experiences, or word-of-mouth, or discussions on social
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media, to mention just a few. As mentioned before, in Finne and Grönroos’s (2009)
relationship communication model, the influence of factors and activities in the customer’s
network is structured along two dimensions: time and situation. The level of integration of
messages with time and situational factors may vary between individuals (Finne and
Grönroos, 2009). The customer’s time frame can be broader than the company’s time frame
(Heinonen et al., 2010) Heinonen et al. (2010) conclude that value is experienced before, during
and after a service is experienced. For example, in the case of a holiday trip, customer value
can emerge before the trip when reading about a destination, be created during the trip when
experiencing the many aspects of the destination and also after the holiday in terms of
memories of such experiences (Heinonen et al., 2010, p. 539). Following the viewpoints of CDL
and relationship communication, to facilitate customers’ value creation during this whole
process, marketers should look for types of messages and channels that have the potential to
facilitate value creation throughout this process. This points to the need for a broad
understanding of communication instruments and sources of messages, warranted by both
temporal and situational dimensions. When analysing customers’ need for communication
messages, all this should be taken into account by the marketer. In communication terms, the
receiver is fully in charge of his or her forming of value-in-use, based on whatever sources, if
any, he or she chooses to use. The marketer’s role is using today’s technologies for getting
customer insight and implementing communication to build upon this and plan
communication activities and channels accordingly.
Further, customer value formation can vary between individuals. This variation can be
described by what Mickelsson calls activityscapes (Mickelsson, 2014), as “a customer
engages in different activities in order to have experiences of value” (Mickelsson, 2014, p. 40).
The process of value-in-use formation is subjective. Some customers form value on the basis
of several sources whose relative impact might vary, while others form value based on fewer
sources whose impact may be more consistent.

5. Communication-in-use
The notion that value emerges for the customer in the form of value-in-use switches the
emphasis from a message-driven, instrument-based view of communication towards a
customer-oriented focus, where the customer’s value perception of communication messages
and processes is the natural starting point. Instead of focusing on available instruments or
the outcome of messages merely from one particular sender – as, for example, in a typical
communication campaign – the focus switches towards customers’ value formation, and
 EJM towards how, and based on what messages, value of communication emerges for customers.
51,3 Building on meaning-based communication (Mick and Buhl, 1992) rather than on a list of
communication issues, and including contextual and temporal sources influencing the
interpretation of messages (Finne and Grönroos, 2009; Rindell, 2013; Rindell and Iglesias,
2014), value-in-use of communication becomes the focal communication instrument. This
switch from message to value of messages in the context of the customer’s reality and the
454 influence of several types of sources and messages provides actionable customer insights
into marketing communication. This is the foundation of customer-driven communication
that builds on several sources of value-in-use of communication (Figure 1, upper right).
This analysis paves the way for the concept of communication-in-use. Building on several
aspects, from both the communication literature and the notion of value as value-in-use and
CDL literature (Table II), communication-in-use manifests a customer-oriented approach
towards marketing communication, based on active customers using whatever sources they
choose.
We define communication-in-use as a customer’s integration and sense-making of all
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messages from any source, company-driven or stemming from other sources the customer
perceives as communication, forming value-in-use for him or her for a specific purpose. In
addition to traditional communication instruments, this definition encompasses all types of
open sources. It can include perceptions of an offering, a product, service, company or person,
and it can be deliberated or embedded in context, visible or solely in the head of the customer.
Communication-in-use can include experience, processes and activities and can involve
several senders considered simultaneously by the customer. Furthermore, no specific sender
needs be involved, and parts may be sourced in the past, present or future. This means, for
example, that a competitor’s deliberate price reduction campaign can change or distort the
focal message regarding a product, service, brand or company. In the context of our holiday
trip example, the introduction of budget airline companies such as Norwegian, Ryanair or
Air Berlin on the one hand, and the uncertainty with increasing bankruptcy of travel
agencies on the other, forms a context of several contradictory messages. The list of
messages and sources of messages used can be long or short and may include
company-initiated communication. It may also include absence of messages (Calonius, 1989),
which is communication as just an explicit message. Furthermore, only a few messages – just
as much as numerous messages – may influence the formation of value-in-use and, thus, be
the foundation of communication-in-use.
From a communication-in-use perspective, sources are contextual and vary dynamically
across individuals (Mickelsson, 2014) as well as among different situations for the same
individual. Further, sources may relate to the three temporal dimensions of past, present and
future (Rindell, 2013; Rindell and Iglesias, 2014). Some sources from the present may be more
deliberate, while past and future sources may be more embedded. Occasionally, all temporal

Concept Authors

Meaning-based communication Mick and Buhl (1992)

Relationship communication model Finne and Grönroos (2009)
Invisible sources/hidden messages Finne and Strandvik (2012);
Value-in-use Vargo and Lusch (2004, 2008), Edvardsson et al. (2011),
Grönroos (2006, 2008, 2011)
Table II. CDL/value-in-use Heinonen et al. (2010), Heinonen et al. (2013, 2015), Rindell and
Key aspects of Strandvik (2010)
communication-in-use Temporal dimension/value-in-use Rindell (2013), Rindell and Iglesias (2014)
 dimensions may have an impact, or occasionally only one or two may have an impact. Marketing
Sometimes sources from the past may have a significant impact, while other situations may communication
be future-oriented or, as in traditional marketing communications literature, typically in the
present. This implies, for example, that strong memories or former experiences can form
sources, but so can future-oriented goals, wishes or expectations as well.

6. Conclusion 455
Refocusing marketing communication towards CIMC requires a new mental model, a change
from an inside-out mode to an outside-in mode. This article combines insights from CDL and
the notion of value-in-use with IMC to create a customer-driven view of marketing
communication, thereby making IMC customer-centric. It introduces the concept of
communication-in-use, which adopts a 360o view by including the dimensions of time and
situation. As the sources of communication messages are open (Rindell and Strandvik, 2010),
the list of instruments and sources can be complex and diverse, or can be simple and
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straightforward. Consequently, these dimensions are essential for identifying the sources
influencing a customer’s communication-in-use and corresponding value-in-use. Critical
sources from the total time span of past memories and experiences to future-oriented goals
and expectations, influenced by sources both internal and external to the customer, form part
of the customer-driven communications process. This process may also encompass
individual abilities and motivations, the customer’s everyday life and ecosystem and how
major trends in society influence him or her. Moreover, the fast growth of social media lifts
word-of-mouth to an unprecedented level as a source of communication.
Figure 3 summarizes the CIMC model. As the management of marketing communication
according to this customer-driven approach must begin by locating the touchpoints, and by
gaining an understanding of how customers react to communication messages and utilize
them, the model should be interpreted beginning from the two innermost circles that are
highlighted in Figure 4. This part of the model depicts how customers process messages that
they are exposed to and register them. The two outer circles represent the customer
ecosystem, which is the context of this processing, and the origin of messages, respectively.
First, customers integrate and make sense of a few or numerous messages from one or
several sources. The origin of such messages can be any or all of the type of senders in the
outermost circle in the model (company, competitor, societal, customer-to-customer), where
messages from different sources and senders influence each other and merge in this
integration process. The outcome of this message integration and sense-making process is
communication-in-use, which in turn influences what value of communication (as
value-in-use) is formed by the customer. Communication-in-use is what a customer makes
out of the various messages which he or she is exposed to, i.e. according to his or her mind,
what is in reality communicated. The communication-in-use, not all messages sent,
determines the value of communication for the customer. The value of communication is the
importance to the customer of what he or she perceives as communication
(communication-in-use). It influences the customer’s impression of, for example, products,
services or companies, and occasionally also his or her decision-making.
Second, how many messages the customer registers, and how such messages influence each
other to create communication-in-use, depends, first of all, on what temporal factors (past,
present, future) – e.g. past experiences, current needs and expectations of a company’s future
development – the customer takes into account. Furthermore, situational factors (internal
and external to the individual) – such as the customer’s attitudes and needs (internal), and
weather forecasts and competitors’ actions (external) – also have an impact on the
 EJM
51,3

456
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Figure 3.
The CIMC model

sense-making and message integration process. For instance, the example of differences in
time frames between travellers and travel agencies demonstrates such factors.
This core of the CIMC process discussed above is illustrated in Figure 4.
Third, how temporal and situational aspects impact the customer’s integration and
sense-making process depends on influences of his or her ecosystem (the customer’s
ecosystem in the model). As demonstrated by CDL (Heinonen et al., 2013), the customer
ecosystem includes communities – comprising friends and family members and various
social media contacts – other customers with whom the customer may interact and various
types of physical and virtual structures. To use the travel example, it would include, for
instance, people the customer meets during the trip, and real and imagined impressions of
servicescapes at the destination. In addition, a host of other factors of any kind may of course
also be considered by the customer.
Fourth, the customer may be exposed to many types of messages from several types of
senders (origin of messages in the model, see Figure 3). Following Duncan and Moriarty
(1997), communication messages can be divided into four groups:
(1) planned messages through communication media, such as advertising, direct mail
and digital communication (e.g. the travel agency’s or tour operator’s webpage or
media travel advertising);
 Marketing
communication

457
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Figure 4.
The core of the CIMC
model

(2) product messages, such as how a product is designed and how it functions and can be
disposed of (e.g. standard of airplanes and hotels);
(3) service messages, such as the smoothness of service processes, queuing times,
attentiveness of employees (e.g. how hotel transfers function and reception personnel’s
attitudes) and ways of handling service recovery situations; and
(4) unplanned messages, such as how the misbehaviour of employees and product or service
failures distort other types of messages (e.g. reviews on TripAdvisor and unexpected bad
weather).

Finally, following Calonius (1989), unplanned messages can be extended to include absence
of messages– e.g. when airline passengers are not adequately informed of delays and
expected waiting times, or customers are not adequately informed of possible hazards of
misusing products.
Fifth, the various types of communication messages that influence a customer are not
only sent by a focal company (company communication) but also by competitors (competitor
communication). Furthermore, through regulations that must be followed and norms that
guide behaviour, various institutions in the society send messages (societal communication).
Finally, traditional face-to-face word-of-mouth communication is as important a source of
messages as ever. However, due to the development of various social media, such as
 EJM Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, customer-to-customer communication has
51,3 increased to levels never experienced before.
In conclusion, the communication-in-use concept and the CIMC model are a major
development of traditional IMC. They turn marketing communication and IMC from an
inside-out concept to an outside-in concept and require rethinking of how to understand,
study and manage marketing communication. Communication-in-use and the CIMC model
458 offer the customer-driven approach to IMC called for by Kitchen et al. (2004b).

6.1 Theoretical implications and further research

Given the development of the media structure and individually oriented media, the growth of
social media and of the power of customers, and in addition, the development of digitalization
and new ways of using big data and gaining individualized customer insight, the turnaround
of IMC developed and discussed in the present article is natural and also possible to achieve
in practice. This switch of communication management from an aggregate, company-driven
level towards an individual customer-driven level is demanding for marketing
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communications managers, and for researchers. A mental turnaround may be needed. We

need to develop a better understanding of how customers through an integration and
sense-making process form communication-in-use and how this transforms into value of
communication.
Further research on traditional marketing communication instruments from a value of
communication perspective is also a key focus of future research. This calls for different
approaches to understanding communication. There is a need for a shift in focus from how
companies as senders of messages involve customers in their processes to how customers
engage with the company, in the context of their ecosystem and messages generated by other
sources than the company (compare Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015). Hence, from the
company’s perspective, it is a question of how customers engage with the company’s
messages, and how messages from other sources change, reinforce or distort this. Moving
from closed sources to open sources calls for a deeper understanding of what can be
considered potential sources of communication-in-use. Instead of focusing on providing
messages, research should focus on embedded messages, the types of messages customers
are exposed to, how they perceive the many types of messages they are exposed to and how
they integrate them and make sense of them. Consequently, further research is needed on
customer ecosystems and customers’ everyday life as well as on how the customer ecosystem
influences communication-in-use. Specific characteristics of customer ecosystems should be
further examined, including terms of unit, time frame, roles and activities, and how providers
might influence the system (Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015). Marketing communications
research must accept that the receiver has become an active part in the communication
process – in relative terms, although not in absolute terms –, the role of one sender has
decreased considerably and the marketing communication process does not function as it
used to.

6.2 Implications for marketers

The managerial implications of the concept and model advocated here are profound.
Although the concept of communication-in-use is not complicated, it requires a turnaround of
the dominating mindset. Moreover, admittedly, adopting and implementing the CIMC model
is a complex task. Although the combination of open sources and the situationally and
temporally based customer perceptions makes the subjective world of customer perceptions
complex, the communication-in-use concept simplifies the complexity for both practitioners
and researchers. It is not about changing the task of communicating (and costs related to
that), but about how to relate to customers and to their ecosystems. The company must be
 able to make customers and potential customers engage with its messages. Thus, a company Marketing
might need less communication efforts and more insight into the customers’ communication communication
processing, and knowledge about how to effectively and efficiently send messages that
customers want to relate to and make part of their communication-in-use.
By turning the customer ecosystem into an advantage and integrating it into the
communication strategy, the company may achieve substantial cost reductions. Messages
can be directed more accurately and unnecessary communication efforts can be avoided.
This does not imply that planning marketing communication would be simple. However,
459
CIMC demonstrates how marketing communication viewed from the customer’s perspective
works, and provides guidelines for the planning process – where to start, what to look for and
what to take into account.
Perhaps the most complex issue is the open mindset required to abandon
company-focused lists of instruments and sources that companies can easily control,
influence and identify, and planning procedures based on them, and to redirect attention to
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customer activity and logic and the ecosystem that influences the customer’s behaviour.
Communication-in-use emancipates companies from these limited lists of instruments, and
from communication models that constrain their communication planning. However, a
thorough understanding of customer logic, the customer ecosystem and the customer’s
individual message integration and sense-making process is needed to gain from this new
approach. It is essential that marketers learn how to support customers’ sense-making and
integration of messages, and realize that without adequate insight into the customers’ logic
and ecosystem, they cannot through their communication make customers engage with the
firm and its products, services and brands. On the contrary, through their communication
efforts, marketers must attempt to engage with the customers’ life, and in that way, convince
them about the meaningfulness for them of the company’s products, services and brands.
Communication-in-use shifts the focus from a company’s communication to the
customer’s multicontextual communication process – perhaps, but not necessarily –
involving the company and its messages. This perspective goes beyond the visibility line for
the company (Finne and Strandvik, 2012; Heinonen et al., 2013) to include sources from the
customer ecosystem, thereby suggesting that everything can communicate or act as a source:
a brand or a company, an ad or a product, an image, family members and friends, other
customers, discussion partners on social media and so on. Communication-in-use can also be
embedded in hobbies, everyday life or future expectations or goals (Mick and Buhl, 1992) –
e.g. in mundane everyday or exclusive processes, such as cooking, sailing or studying.
Today, several technical items are connected to the person’s body, collecting a lot of data. A
combination of big data and neuromarketing can push customer insight towards new
knowledge about customer-integrated communication.
Rather than sending messages, companies should focus on how to facilitate the formation
of customer value from their individual communication-in-use and, if possible, through
interactive dialogue with customers, engage directly with their communication value
formation, thereby directly influencing their communication-in-use and the subsequent
value of communication. Companies should find ways to facilitate customers’ perceptions
and sense-making in the best possible manner. Thus, communication-in-use is much broader
than traditional message-based communication, as it can include whatever the customer
wants to include, while perhaps excluding what the company is attempting to send or do.
This conception is compatible with current customer practices (Schultz, 2006).
The CIMC model based on the communication-in-use concept put forward in the present
article requires a turnaround of the mental model that guides traditional marketing
communication and even conventional IMC. Achieving this change in the mental model from an
 EJM inside-out mode into an outside-in mode may be difficult for marketers and marketing
51,3 communication managers. The CIMC model demands that marketers gain deeper and more
individual-based insight in the customers’ life, ecosystems and logics. However, the already
existing sources of individual retailing data, new technologies for gaining individual behaviour
measures, such as apps measuring customer activity and rest, and possibilities to use big data in
general, provide such individualized data to a growing extent (Saarijärvi et al., 2014).
460 Without a change in the prevailing mental model, implementing this customer-centric
outside-in marketing communication model will be difficult. However, if a mental model
turnaround is ensured, marketing communication planning and implementation will become
as straightforward a process as traditional IMC. It is only different, has a different starting
point, is based on more individualized customer data and requires different activities or
requires that traditional activities be conducted in a different way.
Kitchen et al. (2004b) questioned whether agencies ever get IMC. Here, we have offered a
concept of “getting closer to the customer” to understand and utilize the power of IMC.
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Communication-in-use is heavily consumer-driven and beyond the influence of company

control. This is new for so-called brand builders. Contrary to the contemporary jargon and
dominating views on branding, a brand cannot be instrumentally built; it is formed in the
customer’s mind. Indeed, if anyone builds a brand, it is the customer (Grönroos, 2015).
Following the consumer logic, the company is only one part of the value-formation process:
from controlling the communication process, the company role becomes provisional or
optional. Consequently, the consumer selects where inputs (the messages and sources) come
from and what to process on the basis of individual and situational contexts, taking into
account historical and envisioned future issues. Brand managers and advertising and media
agencies that adopt the customer logic that is advocated in this article can get closer to an
active customer’s practices. Instead of building brands, marketers facilitate the customers’
brand formation processes. By understanding the logic of open sources (Rindell and
Strandvik, 2010), companies can switch their mental models from controlling messages to
potentially supporting their customers’ perception of messages, communication-in-use and
formation of value-in-use of what they consider is being communicated.
As the communication integration and sense-making processes are individual and the
value of communication that emerges is individual, the segmentation of customers for
communication purposes has to be taken several steps further – in principle, towards
segments-of-one. Depending on the type of messages, customers and contexts, going this far
is sometimes possible and sometimes impossible; even if it were possible, it may be too
expensive, but at least the direction is clear. However, if marketing communication is to
become meaningful as a means of competition, this development is inevitable and totally in
line with current trends in marketing. In many situations where data about individual
customers are difficult or unnecessarily expensive to gather, customer archetypes and
characteristics of such groups of customers may be easier to develop. Such data may be
enough for the development of CIMC strategies.
In conclusion, based on communication-in-use, how value of communication is formed for
an individual customer and through which processes communication-in-use and the
resulting value of communication are formed for him or her are the key issues to be studied.
Identifying which instrument can be used and how this instrument can be used effectively to
trigger a wanted value of communication is an important but, relatively speaking, secondary
issue. The view adopted here is both outcome- and process-based. Communication-in-use is
not grounded in company-planned IMC processes but in consumer contexts, in the same
manner as image-in-use, which determines how a person’s current view of, for example, a
company is grounded in past experiences and steers this person’s considerations of his or her
 future behaviour (Rindell, 2013). We argue that the concept of communication-in-use offers Marketing
an understanding of customer-driven communication, combining insights from marketing communication
communication and customer logic and integrating them into a new, holistic concept of
customer-driven communication. This will help communication researchers and
practitioners to develop a more appropriate understanding of marketing communication in
the contemporary world and create customer-focused marketing communication models and
more effective communication strategies. 461
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About the authors

Åke Finne, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Hanken School of Economics, Finland. His research interest
is marketing communication with a focus on the consumer. Åke Finne is the corresponding author and
can be contacted at: ake.finne@hanken.fi
Christian Grönroos is a Professor at the Hanken School of Economics, Finland. His research interests
are related to service marketing and customer relationship management. He is one of the early
developers of the service management and marketing school of thinking labelled The Nordic School. He
is also the founder of the CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management. In 2011, he
was selected Marketing Legend by the Sheth Foundation.

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